The “Deadliest Catch” isn’t about contracting TB and they don’t accept applications.
Always make sure to enunciate your words properly lest you get slapped. You would be surprised at how many women get “best” and “breast intentions” mixed up.
Jailers do not accept chest dander as a form of bribe.
Classes in rectal thermometry are more “in depth” than one might realize.
If a potential employer asks you if you have any questions for them don’t inquire if him and his wife “swing.”
Try to speak constantly with your tongue flicking the roof of your mouth and you can talk and sing like Dave Matthews.
Steve Perry’s mother and the father of Dave Matthews had an affair producing James Blunt.
With just a little stint in the exciting world of narcotics, you too could master the delicate art of lip-picking.
A Korean Thicket kicks the crap out of a China grove any day of the week.
If your pants won’t fit due to a succession of close birthdays, holidays and wedding celebrations, a quick incision near the undercarriage of the garment will help immensely.
Remember, a Peter Gabriel album played backwards produces some profound teachings in Scientology.
Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, nor look into an irate horse’s anus.
Licking your chops all the time because you want to be Prince is enough to get you excommunicated.
The goal of Anthropology is NOT to destroy other cultures.
Every home needs a designated opium den.
The English language is an amazing thing. Especially when it is organized into an erotic novel.
If you purchase a Jetta you are required by law in 39 states to put a Roxy decal on the back window and hang a lei from your rearview mirror.
If you have a neon green liquid spilling out onto your driveway from underneath your truck don’t be too concerned about cleaning it up. The neighborhood pets usually do a pretty thorough job.
One doesn’t need to be “open” with their sexuality to become a Polymath. Stupid lying professors.
On Easter authorities do not find stealing eagle eggs to be an acceptable form of celebration.
While riding the bus, always avoid the slightly damp seat and anyone named “Russell.”
Because “Flame Retardant” could be considered to be offensive to either gays, or the mentally handicapped, or both, one should opt to say, “A material that is impervious to being lit alight.”
Superman isn’t dead. He just moved to San Fran under the name of Kenneth Kent.
There is no better place than Twitter to annoy celebrities without subsequent litigation.
Utilize a Bedazzler to give any boring old laptop a little flare.
If a girl asks for you to hold her, she probably doesn’t mean underwater.
Never let a cross-eyed man measure your bungee cord length.
Protected species are always the most tasty.
Celebrities usually have their homes protected, but not their garbage.
According to DNA tests, the Robert Patrick scabs I bought off E-Bay don’t match the “Terminator 2” star. Beware of E-Bay scab scams.
Urinating in a jar and lightening it underneath with a flashlight doesn’t create authentic psychedelics.
Decompression chambers are not to be used for comedic purposes. The bends are no laughing matter people.
Luck Dragons really don’t exist. They are usually just dead poodles with mange.
I know I haven’t been around for a while and for that I apologize. I would like to express my appreciation to those who contacted me wondering where another blog entry was. It is quite flattering and to those who took the time I would just like to say thank you. It doesn’t go unnoticed!
There has been so much going on in the news that I have been dying to comment on, but I honestly have been pretty busy with school and taking my cats’ temperatures (a preemptive strike against feline illness if you will). At any rate, I will now briefly attempt to offer up some negative assessments of Barney Frank, critiques of American foreign policy and due to my slight pseudo-stoicism, a surprising defense of Obama.
But first . . .
As you may or may not know, last week the consistently over-defensive Barney Frank got up in front of a bunch of students at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. After his lisp-filled tirade, the always gracious Frank decided to take some questions from the audience and initiated a question/answer format.
A student named Joe Pollak got up to make his inquiry to the congressman. He asked the following horrible and unforgivable question, which a student, whose primary duty is to learn, should never do:
“How much responsibility, if any, do you have for the financial crisis?”
How completely unreasonable of him! Now generally, if there is one thing Barney Frank doesn’t like it is a question. Indeed, his plumage goes up instantly in a defensive posture anytime anything is asked of him and it was no different this time. Frank stated the student’s question was accusatory. This conclusion was not induced from the actual question itself, but rather the independent modifying statements which preceded it. Yet, these were completely unrelated to the question. It basically just modified the question in Frank’s mind due to a preconception of the “right.” Thus, perhaps he did hear an accusatory tone within the question, but the question itself intrinsically contains no suggested accusations and in fact, even if it did, the conditional operator of “if any” would negate it, or at least give Frank the freedom to respond however he wanted to the question posed to him.
Thereby, I draw the conclusion that Frank’s perception of accusation is nothing more than a feigned sense of outrage to assist in nullifying the challenge the question poses. It helps shift the focus and redirect or negate the responsibility of the presupposed answer, which the very nature of a question suggests. This focus is taken off the person who has been approached with the inquest by negation and it is attempted to shift the scope of focus back unto the asker. This point we will revisit in a minute.
First though, let us actually grant what Mr. Frank asserts and say it is accusatory. Does this abolish the need for him to answer the question? No, absolutely not, for intention may change exact word usage, but the merits of inquiry remain steadfast. I believe this can be proven by a simple mental exercise. Picture any person you like asking the same question to Barney Frank and then switch the intention of the asker to whatever you like. Does the question lose any of its value considering the merits of the question, the question/answer format, the audience, or the relation between the student and the authoritative figure? No, in fact the question still has merit and thereby we can determine the inquiry is not dependent upon intention as supposed by Frank.
In fact, he still has a responsibility to answer the question by the very intrinsic properties of the office he holds and to deny this is a form of delusion that is not healthy for him, or the state he represents. This is a matter that is becoming ever more frequent and an issue we certainly need to stop. To return to the feigned outrage point, any vilification of those asking a question, no matter who that may be, especially when it comes to policy, should be perceived poorly by the public and by the press. For, it is upon policies and decision where we are able to judge performance. If we can’t inquire of performance, then our ability to judge accurately and effectively is seriously hindered. If it is hindered, then the very real possibility remains that we will not be able to hold our officials to any form of accountability. Furthermore, the quality of our questions will decrease and our voice will become ever more silenced amongst those who put on a guise of anger. This tactic of feigned outrage, however, can show us something profound. If it is exercised, then one can induce that those under the guise are being challenged and have a spongy foundation, rather than a concrete one, upon which any answer they set forth rests. Thereby, the target of the inquiry feels threatened and alarmed, this manifesting in any way to take the focus off them, usually by conversing it back to the asker. The press secretary Gibbs employs this method almost daily.
This is a sad state of affairs, when one is demonized for asking a question, yet weren’t we always told there was no such thing as a stupid one? Now they are stupid if you don’t share someone’s ideology, which isn’t based on questions at all, but rather based on a community of people with like-feelings. A political, ideological ghetto if you will. We have been working at completely divorcing the mind from shaping our world by relying almost wholly on our sensibilities and although these can be useful, they can also be dangerous, for particular exceptions will soon give way to generalities which govern all our lives and contradict a democracy. A politician should realize for every single person posing a question, there are probably thousands of others wondering the same thing and it would serve them well to look beyond superficial things such as intention to the very heart and merits of the question, which they can then refute or acknowledge at their leisure.
So, even granting Frank his charge, we find his argument to be so lacking and his attack so inappropriate, it is almost beyond belief for a man who holds public office. Yet, let’s go even further. Let us grant Frank every condition. Let us take away the setting, format, relation and everything. Just two people of equal stature in discourse. By this mental exercise something else comes into focus: the feigned outrage only works with an audience. Within a personal setting it becomes almost completely void of any power. I would assert Frank wasn’t as mad as he seemed, but was rather doing a performance piece. Therefore, if this guise wouldn’t suit him within a personal conversation, why would it have any bearing within the conditions of the setting? It only does because it’s not applying to the mind, but to an inherent bias or “feelings”.
In fact, I would argue the exact opposite of what Frank did and would say he had much to gain by answering the question. Remember, if we take away everything, there is only a great benefit to be manifest by answering the charge. Even more so in front of a group of people! Unless of course he has nothing to back it up except rhetoric, of which he has plenty, but words which come from people such as him are empty and if I were the democratic party I would be thinking about putting someone else up for election in that great state.
I believe the people at Harvard began to notice all these things too though, for even the woman behind Pollak cried out for Frank to “Just answer the question.” Though admittedly she could have been annoyed at Pollak and wanted him to sit down, but it scarcely matters. Why? Because politicians need to answer to us, not the other way around! Where along the line did things get so confused? Those who are afraid of questions are those who are not qualified to answer them, which is no place we want our elected officials to be in. Lastly, and finally, where is the honesty? Reflect for a moment on the last time you were involved in a situation which was less than ideal and what if someone asked you what you would do differently or how much responsibility you had in it? I almost guarantee we would all, if honest with ourselves and them, reflect on it, answer truthfully by recounting the experience, what exactly we would have done differently if we had the opportunity (for there is ALWAYS something), and what we are doing to rectify the situation. This is a form of honesty that should be REQUIRED for our elected officials, no matter if you come from a blue state or a red. Yet, we shrug these things off because they have less impact if those not answering the charge have our same color coding. The only color such people have who won’t answer an honest question with an honest answer is “yella!”
This is what Barney Frank is and maybe I am being a little harsh here. Perhaps. Yet, it gets me really mad when a person asking a question is vilified for exercising a right they have and that was encouraged by the founding fathers. I long for the days when there were upright men and women in office who would answer the charge posed to them thoughtfully and elegantly. However, those days preceded even my existence in the world and with every passing moment, day, week, year and generation the rift spreads between the virtue of those who hold office and the current state of politics where we the public are held captive in ignorance, our voices becoming too small to penetrate the overpowering din of arrogance emanating from Washington D.C.
On Obama’s Bow and Trip Overseas.
If you have read any of my postings in the past, you probably know I am not a fan of Obama and will call him out whenever I deduce or induce a proper conclusion from the information available. Thus, it may surprise you to find I am going to defend Obama a little in this part, though the two democrat readers I have will probably be secretly pleased, so I guess I could go ahead and dedicate this part to them. Yet, I put it in the middle of the blog so they don’t get too big of a head or anything. :-P~*
At any rate there is this huge deal over Obama’s already infamous bow and quite frankly, I think there are much greater things to be worried about than if Obama bowed or not. Yet, despite me joking at the start of this section, I did put the Barney Frank entry first for a reason, so I could introduce my conclusions based upon intention, that one is hard pressed to make a judgment on intention alone as some are doing concerning this “Bowgate” thing. In fact, I will make the argument that there is another property to bowing which supersedes the one supposed by those stating the bow is somehow bad.
Now first let me say both arguments have a certain validity, but I believe another can be introduced with greater probability, due to the subservient relation between the two premises. There are really two main parts to the reasoning behind a bow:
1) Respect 2) Submission
Of course, there are various intermediate conditions within the act of bowing, which can be referred to as “status.” Yet, though the two elements of bowing can be thought of to be separate sides of the spectrum, the truth is “submission” is actually subservient to “respect”, ironically enough. That is, whatever conclusion you draw from Bowgate, the only element which remains constant is respect. In fact, without it one would cease to bow in the first place.
It is this form I saw behind Obama’s bow and not any submission to another culture. In fact, if I were to meet a world leader, just with how I am in my personality, it is the very same thing I would do. I would bow, not saying their will envelops and controls me from that moment on, but rather indicating I am humbling myself representing a form of respect that would hopefully communicate a desire for partnership despite ideological differences. Therefore, weighing the respect and submission, respect has a greater probability than submission for the reasons I just mentioned.
What submission seems to suppose is that an expressed humility is a form of weakness. I couldn’t disagree more. Some of the most humble people I know are also the first people you don’t want to mess with. As Barney Frank would be wise, so would we to not look at superficial things from bowing to displays of emotion, for our judgments on these things tend to be more projections of the self, rather than judgment of the events at hand. Thus, since they are so superficial and subjective, no real conclusion can ever be reached and they are better ignored lest they distract from other more important pressing issues. We should wait till objective evidence becomes available being not dependent on things like intention, but rather real action and things which can be measured or fully analyzed to enumerate their possible merits or falsehoods.
Some of Obama’s rhetoric was under attack too, with which I disagree as well, for contextually they seem to have more validity than not. First was in France where Obama stated America was arrogant. If one looks at this premise alone it appears to be a very harsh statement, but right after he accused Europe of having an anti-Americanism which we have been complaining about for years. The fact that Obama said this so bluntly was really the important thing. When communicating to someone some potentially abrasive information, one needs to communicate a relation and an understanding so it is received and pondered upon, instead of a defensive posture arising which deflects or defuses the convictions. One is wise to seek such things out, so I find no fault with Obama concerning this either.
Lastly, what he said in Turkey, which is perhaps the strongest argument concerning things he said and did. He mentioned our past in the US, especially with how we treated the Indians, which is so far in the past an inference that it was wrong is completely understandable. However, I think conversely it had more to do with Turkey’s past than our past with the genocide they experienced. I think Obama wanted to establish some sort of connection or relationship there by articulating similarities, good and bad. So, thus I can’t find fault for him on this either, for even if one supposes this the evidence is still not enough and the arguments really lie upon subjective grounds. Thereby, any induction is weak at best and it is certainly not enough to infer a sound deductive conclusion.
I also like the fact he stopped in and said hi to the troops and thanked them. Though I am not in the military and never have been I can see how important a presidential visit is to the troops despite your politics and what Obama did there probably boosted morale greatly. This, of course is never a bad thing unless it trespass against the conditional requirements of being a solider. So it will get applause from me any day of the week. Some wanted to attack him because it was expected, but if he wouldn’t have visited Iraq then there would have been outrage about that too.
In fact, it may have very well bumped him up another grade from the lower C’s I was giving him, though honestly with such a complex job as the presidency this is an abstract ballpark figure, for a pure letter grade is kind of unfair so take what I say concerning this with a grain of salt. Actually, just throw the whole lick on it. Anyway, though he said everything good, or rather correctly, the response by the international community was lacking, which really shows we as Americans need to be self-reliant more than anything. This “one world” thing, though reeking of drum circles, Patchouli and musk, doesn’t really ring realistic for me. The simple answer is I feel our country is trying to give away something or distribute (forgo the socialist implications of the terms for a moment) some element which we have not mastered or have not acquired ourselves. Therefore, how can we give something if we don’t have it first to begin with? It’s paradoxical, but I feel to really help the world we must help ourselves. Let us not be selfish, but let us not be selfless either. For there is some merit to Rand’s “virtue of selfishness,” which can be helpful.
Let us move from the Atlantic to the Pacific for a moment with the launch of North Korea’s “satellite.” Now everyone can pretty much see this was some sort of ICBM test, but nonetheless, the international, “one world” community is failing us and themselves by not causing a ruckus. Why should we cause a scene or attempt through political and economic channels to hinder their military might? Simple. They have an army that goose-steps. It is my theory that if a country has a military force which goose-steps (note the distinction between marching) they are up to no good and preemptive measures need to be taken to keep them, the goose-stepping crazies, at bay. Just sayin’. This being said, America has no leverage anymore. We gave that away by borrowing more money from China. China has a hold over us, so we cannot put any diplomatic pressure upon them to impose any sanction whatsoever, for they own us now. Literally. We try to impose upon them, they claim Nebraska. Or something. I think you get the point.
Now, let us fly Indiana Jones style back to the Middle East and discuss Iran. Fun times that Iran. This is a situation where we may actually appear weak because of our diplomacy. To explain I will incorporate a person who I have always admired, though who is on attack by Glenn Beck at the moment: President Teddy Roosevelt. Actually, Glenn Beck and Teddy have something in common, that though I don’t always agree with their politics, I admire them both so I have no problem citing Roosevelt here, for though I don't agree with how he did things, there is something to be admired about the man’s character.
Americans at that time also had issue with some of Teddy’s strong arm tactics, and concerning the Panama canal he stated:
"There was much accusation about my having acted in an 'unconstitutional' manner. I took the isthmus, started the canal, and then left Congress -- not to debate the canal, but to debate me. . . . While the debate goes on, the canal does too; and they are welcome to debate me as long as they wish, provided that we can go on with the canal."
Granted, his means of “persuasion” leaves a lot to be desired. Yet, how does this apply to Iran exactly? Am I drunk? No, the place I would like to focus on is the place where Teddy talks about the debate and that they can debate him all they wish and, “While the debate goes on, the canal does too.” This is the identical point I am trying to make about why we appear weak when it comes to Iran. It’s not what happens during the course of diplomatic discussions, it’s what’s going on beyond them and the fact we are engaging in them in the first place. Further understanding is required to extrapolate this point.
It should be realized Iran right now is proceeding with their program of enriching the fissionable Uranium 235 out of the Uranium 238 which is a process by which weapons grade material is produced. This variable in the diplomatic negotiations changes things dramatically, for one could pose the argument of the benefits of negotiations if their enrichment programs remains in a particular state, but if it is proceeding then they have the upper hand, for the incoming diplomatic actions are not having a desired effect as determined by those engaging the country. In fact, it suits Iran quite well to have these negotiations for it puts on an air of international cooperation, while they still have the ability to plot its demise if need be. This is why Teddy welcomed such debates about things like the Panama canal and his Navy circumnavigation, for the debates gave him freedom. It is this is element I hadn’t recognized before till recently to be honest. I thought like others, that no harm can come from negotiations and this is true, unless the talks are being used by a particular side as a means of pacification, which Iran may very well be doing. Yet, this conclusion applies the variable of intention, which is superficial as stated earlier, so other evidence must be found to base the conclusion on rather than this supposition. I believe the very fact Iran has not altered their enrichment program suggests the cogent assertion that Iran is using negotiation as opportunity. It certainly isn’t beyond the realm of probability and this probability I find pretty high, for reasons I hope I articulated clearly enough.
I find a trend in my blogs and to help defeat the trend in order to keep my bias at bay, I am going to diverge from the trend and actually close with something good I find about Obama and defend him again. Yet, we need to go to his foreign policy again for this concerning his actions in Iraq and Afghanistan. They are rather good and I find no fault at this time. Yes, he did go back on some of the statements he made in the campaign, but I would say we all need to take those lightly, for anyone who thinks there isn’t a difference between the amount of information available to those in the public sphere and those who sit at the desk in the oval office briefed by all military commanders and chiefs of staff are really immersed in an illogical delusion of sorts. Truth is, Obama stated a goal and when the full reality was made known to him, he needed to shift his opinions and any liberal or conservative who wants to call him out on that alone should cut him some slack. Also, he is putting more troops in Afghanistan and if the numbers are to be believed, and I see no reason that we shouldn’t take them for face value, violence is on the rise there and more troops should be sent it. Though he doesn’t need it he has my support on this front to protect the people of the region and by doing so at the same time protecting our very nation.
The circumstances concerning both Iran and North Korea I find to be separate matters, which President Obama will have to confront with the aid of the State Department and the international community.
So, I give Obama an overall grade of B- on his trip and what did occur because I think he may have changed some perceptions about our nation in the eyes of the world. Furthermore, I think he boosted the troops’ morale. Also, for enumerated reasons earlier, I don’t think he gaffed at all, though the iPod thing is a little weird, but come on; what are supposed to get the freaking Queen?!? She probably isn’t into the Nintendo DS. Plus, if he signed off on taking out the Pirates, he has my support on this as well. Though, we can’t call them “Pirates” anymore. They are now called: "Aquatic Based Individuals With Intentions Concerning The Forceful Acquisition of Various Properties Due To The Poverty Imposed On Them By Determined External Capitalist Forces." Or, “ABIWICTFAOVPDTTPIOTBDECF” for short.
